tried to accomplish, and what they believed they had accomplished by means of this legislation, he must express

his dissent from the opinion of the court.

 

Frederick Douglass, a former slave and civil rights advocate during the era of this decision said:4

 

The future historian will turn to the year 1883 to find the most flagrant example of national deterioration. Here he will find the Supreme Court of the nation reversing the action of the Government, defeating the manifest purpose of the Constitution, nul- lifying the Fourteenth Amendment, and pla- cing itself on the side of prejudice, pro- scription, and persecution.

Whatever this Supreme Court may have been in the past, or may by the Constitution have been intended to be, it has, since the days of...

Please subscribe to keep reading.